Egg-donor mum ‘never wanted a cent’
AWairarapa woman who gifted her eggs to allow another couple to have children says she never expected or wanted a cent for her donation.
‘‘I would have done it for nothing. I went into this thinking there would be no money at all.
The fact that I was able to cover my petrol costs coming to appointments was just a bonus. I don’t think money should be a driver for being a donor,’’ said Heidi Holbrook.
She talked about her experience helping others have a family as fertility specialists look at ways to tackle the growing list of women needing sperm or egg donations to allow them to conceive.
While a leading clinic says modest payments and imported sperm and eggs might help, a woman who was conceived using donated sperm has warned against changes which might ‘‘commercialise’’ children.
For Holbrook, the decision to become involved as a donor was more straightforward.
Six years ago a friend told her how another friend, Rachel Henry, was struggling to conceive. ‘‘She told me about the challenges her friend was facing in having a child and I just thought to myself ‘I could help out’.
‘‘I could just imagine how horrible it would be to be in a situation where you wanted to have a child so badly but couldn’t. I had eggs, why should I not give them to someone else who needs them? It was not a difficult decision for me.’’
Holbrook, who works as director of Kokomai Festival in the Wairarapa, has three children with her partner, Rupert.
‘‘I didn’t need to think about it for myself - it was the right time in my life. I was not having any more children of my own but I did talk to Rupert and the children and they were all for it.’’
She and Henry quickly bonded - ‘‘she was very honest, I could see she would make a great mother’’.
The couples (including Henry’s husband, Allan) went to a counselling session at Fertility Associates and discussed how they would move forward with the egg donation, how they were committed to staying in touch after the birth and how they would be open with the child about his start in life.
Holbrook, who works as director of Kokomai Festival in the Wairarapa, underwent the process to have her eggs removed. Out of 15, two were viable. By November, 2011, Henry was pregnant and on June 13, 2012, baby Gus was born.
‘‘It made me feel so good to be able to help people who wanted a child as much Rachel and Allan. I wish I had been able to do it earlier for them.’’
A week after Gus’ birth she visited Henry. ‘‘I told her, ‘he is 100 per cent yours’. I’ve never felt like he is mine. He is theirs. And whenever I think of them as a family, whenever I see them, I get a big smile on my face.’’
The families keep in touch, visiting one another on birthdays and during school holidays.
Holbrook says her children adore Gus and think of him as a little brother.
But she has always been conscious of giving the Henrys space.
‘‘It’s good that we live over the hill in the Wairarapa and they live in Lower Hutt so that we are not in each other’s pockets. The last thing I want is to be in Rachel’s face all the time.’’
For information and help for parents of donor conceived people fertilitynz.org.nz For information and support for donor-conceived people: wearedonorconceived.com